SOCIETY SCANDAL.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5846, 4 December 1880, Page 3

SOCIETY SCANDAL.

Not long ago a strange scene took placo in a pretty garden not a hundred miles from London. The tree-shaded lawn was scattered over with seats, with here aud there a bright-colored l J ersian rug for the special behoof of any guests who object to open-air amusements on account of " damp grass." To some minds grass is always damp. It was early in the afternoon, and the only tenants of the garden were the servants, who were arranging refreshments upon some tables under the trees. They seemed full of nods and becks, and whispers of apparently mysterious import passed among thorn. A carriage drives up to the gate, and two ladies entering, look round for their hostess. The servant who has admitted them goes in search of his mistress, and a few moments afterwards a young and beautifully-dressed woman issues from the house, her face deeply flushed, her eyes half closed, and her gait uncertain. Just at this moment another carriage drives up, a gentleman and lady being the occupants. They, too, enter by the garden gate, and advance towards the house across the lawn. As they approach the uncertain, swaying figure of their hostess they I«ok at each other significantly, and the lady says in a low voice : •' I was afraid of this. Where oan Ma- X be to allow ker to be seen in this state V The interpretation of those wild looks, that disordered hair, and those meaningless words is that Mi' 3K. is intoxicated, though not sufficiently so to be quite helpless. She wanders about among her guests ; her condition, however, being so palpable, so unmistakable, that the majority laugh and titter, while the friendly few pity, though they condemn her. The painful scene was ended by the arrival of her husband, whose loot of misery, as ho led his wife on his arm through the groups of gaily-dressed people into the house, touched even the laughers with pity.

This is no exaggeration of facts. It is, unfortunately, a scene from real life, and, I fenr, not an uncommon one. The love of strong drinks appears to be increasing among the educated women of our day. During the Beason just past, instances of this were so frequent as to lead to the conjecture that a kind of epidemic of drink was pervading those classes of society in which culture, position, and the possession of every comfort of life would be a sufficient guarantee against so de grading a vice. "Society" ladies, in fact, live too much upon excitement not to suffer from the inevitable reaction. i*'or a few months in the year they endure continued fatigue in treading the social mill, and for the remainder they are a prey to ennui. They try the first dose of chloral as an experiment. "My eyes look so dull and heavy this morning. So-and-so says chloral is such a capital thing; I think I'll try it." In this case, as in that of rouge, it is not " the first step that costs." It is easy enough. But from being an experiment it becomes a practice, and from a practice it develops into a necessity. It is no longer servant but master. My lady has her half-pint of champagne about an hour after breakfast, another at luncheon, a glass of liqueur instead of afternoon tea, a regular sequence of wines at dinner, and brandy in her postprandial coffee Her chloral in her dressing-room is as permanent and indispensable an arrangement as her bath.

Why should it not be possible in this country, as in America, to provide establishments where this dreadful propensity could be treated as a disease 1 The patients at these homes are in the same position as ordinary boarders, the only difference being that their diet iscarefally ordered, and total abstinence from all intoxicants is rigidly enforced. Many cures havo been completed in this way. Prevention, however, is better than cure, and in the case of fashionable women, a reform in the matter of turning day into night, and otherwise outraging nature as they do, would contribute something towards the desirable end. Empty, frivolous, useless lives revenge themselves in tha ennui they invariably cause. " Get work," says Mrs Barrett-Browning. "Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get." Congenial occupation is a guarantee against the weariness of monotony to any woman, be she girl, wife, or widow. — Truth.